Skepticism

EVENTS

Not a joke, and not an atheist

Ronald William Brown was a puppeteer on a children’s show on the Christian Television Network. He is also devout, and liked to take children to church. What a sweet, sweet man.

Here he is, using a puppet to explain why pornography is bad for Christians.

I think you can guess exactly where this is going.

Unfortunately, he also had a, umm, fetish. I think I’ll put the creepy desires of Mr Brown below the fold, in case you’d rather not read about what he wanted to do to children.

On Friday, Brown was arrested on charges of conspiring to kidnap a child and possession of child pornography and booked into the Pinellas County Jail. U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents who searched his home found lewd images of children bound and gagged, a flier for a missing child and "images of children that appear to be deceased."

According to the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, Brown told agents that he and Kansas resident Michael Arnett, another alleged child cannibalism enthusiast, "did discuss killing, dismembering and eating" a specific boy at Gulf Coast Church. However, Brown said "it was just a fantasy and he could never and would never hurt anyone."

Brown told agents that Arnett traveled to Florida and tried to meet with him, but he didn’t respond because he didn’t want to follow through on the acts they had discussed online.

Arnett was arrested in May and charged with two counts related to the production, distribution and possession of child pornography. Ross Feinstein, spokesman at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents continue to investigate claims Arnett made to Brown that he had cannibalized a child.

“Child cannibalism enthusiast”? They actually exist? Every atheist baby-eating joke in the world has just been ruined by a disturbing Christian reality.

When I first read about this on Justin’s blog, I immediately wanted to vomit. I’ve never had that reaction to reading something. There are some things that are so alien to me that I can’t even grasp them. Reaching into the mind of a xtian fundamentalist is easier than understanding ‘child cannibalism enthusiasts’.

Sweet jesus on a sesame seed bun, yet another sicko christian is dragged from the weeds and exposed to the light. Good thing he believes in a god to keep him on the righteous path unlike them evil athiests who have no standards of morality to base their live upon.

Possession of child pornography and fact that he apparently at least planned to actually harm a child are appalling and evil. I hope he’s kept away from people he could possibly harm and receives any treatment that might be effective.

Could somebody tell me just what the hell it is with these christianists?!

They’re human. The ideology that exults in that imperfection doesn’t exactly help matters, though. It doesn’t matter that they’re not perfect — they’re forgiven by someone that is!

Well well… what do you know… another xian asshole gets caught doing something he says is wrong.. that just happens to be what he most craves…

Hate to break it to you, but plenty of atheists rape while thinking rape is wrong. Atheist murderers don’t all comport themselves on the public platform of supporting murder, either.

The problem here is the child porn and the wanting to eat a kid, guys. Not the fact that he was a Christian, although that sure is a notable data point.

PZ didn’t mention it, but he had had two run-ins with cops that didn’t result in arrest previously. In one, he was pulled over with a pair of boys underwear between his seats. He said they were for his puppets. In another, a neighbor reported suspiciously about his car rides with young boys. No grounds for arrest found that time, either. Personally, I’m expecting more to be forthcoming.

PZ didn’t mention it, but he had had two run-ins with cops that didn’t result in arrest previously. In one, he was pulled over with a pair of boys underwear between his seats. He said they were for his puppets. In another, a neighbor reported suspiciously about his car rides with young boys. No grounds for arrest found that time, either. Personally, I’m expecting more to be forthcoming.

It is no surprise to me that the people whose belief system is so extremely hung up about sex end up like this. If you think all sex is deviant and bad and sinful, there really is no gradation between normal non-procreative sex and this sick shit. It’s all sinful and evil, so why differentiate?

He says that like it makes it okay. Sane, reasonable, 21st century people do not fantasize about devouring children. Sorry, they don’t.

This is the problem I’m having here. On the one hand, a lot of the commentary in this thread seems to be jumping on the “people who masturbate while imagining things that would be unethical or illegal to actually do, and/or that most people don’t find masturbation-conducive to imagine, are ipso facto Complete Monsters” bandwagon, which is kind of fucked up in principle and documentedly not really accurate. On the other hand, this guy is in possession of child pornography, which supports and encourages actions that harm actual people, was apparently engaged in a conspiracy to commit lust-murder of a child but chickened out, and there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence that he’s also committed non-murder child molestation in the past, and I really don’t want to be misconstrued as defending him. >.>

I knew Ron Brown personally. He used to volunteer at the Frog Prince Puppetry Arts theater that I attended when I was a child. We often worked together, putting on plays and puppet shows. He always struck me as a very quiet, kind-hearted individual.

It’s crushing to learn this. I guess it just goes to show that you can think that you know someone, and still not have any idea what’s truly going on inside their head.

A few quick thoughts on “a, umm, fetish”:
He did not choose that. Who would? Speaking just from my experiences with my own paraphilia (which does not involve children in any way; I despise the wretched little homonculi), it’s probably made his life hell. Many things you people take for granted – relationships, sex, attraction, lust, the entire arc of the life we’re instructed to want by countless depictions in various media – all of that goes out the window. What you get instead is a lifetime of self-hatred. For as long as you live, society pounds it into your head that you are badwrongsick. You cannot trust anyone. You cannot let anyone in, because there is something broken in your brain, and they will hate you for it. You didn’t ask for it, you don’t want it, but if you EVER say anything, if you EVER get caught, you’re a fucking monster.

I feel sorry for the poor bastard. My sickness isn’t his, but it’s close enough for empathy. If he acted out, if he abused anyone, it’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy he couldn’t or wouldn’t get the help he needed. Not that being surrounded by a society of judgemental pricks makes it easier to do that. Seriously, fuck you all.

I -do- think people can legitimately have thoughts they have little to no control over, and their reactions to said thoughts are again beyond their control. (This does not mean they can’t control acting on them, but that someone may be aroused or excited by something this horrible.)

When you seek out others to share that fantasy, that’s when it becomes a problem.

When you actually seek out child pornography, that’s when it becomes a crime.

While xianity isn’t to blame for a sick fucker’s actions, it’s perfectly legit to point out the hypocrisy and the actions of organizations who seek to sweep it under the rug. And I I -do- think that repressive religions can contribute to extremes. Tell someone enough that even normal, healthy sexual thoughts are evil, the more likely their views of sexuality will be warped.

So, that’s why they eat the crackers and drink the wine. Seems christians are trained to enjoy eating bits of their dead jew and drinking jesus’ blood in a big gold coblet. So, eating kiddies is not that far removed from christian reality. Better still if they’re young…and tender…Gross.

@34 spamamander: “When you seek out others to share that fantasy, that’s when it becomes a problem.”

No. Socializing is part of being human. Having a paraphilia doesn’t change that. I want to know I’m not alone, that there are other people out there who understand. Again speaking from personal experience, seeking out and finding a community that shares (more or less) my illness has made it much easier to live with it, to not act on it.

This is the problem I’m having here. On the one hand, a lot of the commentary in this thread seems to be jumping on the “people who masturbate while imagining things that would be unethical or illegal to actually do, and/or that most people don’t find masturbation-conducive to imagine, are ipso facto Complete Monsters” bandwagon, which is kind of fucked up in principle and documentedly not really accurate.

This, basically. You really can’t control your paraphilias themselves. Just having them doesn’t make you a bad person, and I can reasonably assume that there are people with, uh… kiddiecannabilismfucking fetishes that are still normal, properly functioning people.

(Okay if I’m to be entirely honest I have trouble wrapping my head around that, but I want to give benefit of the doubt)

The issue comes when you go past imagination and harmless simulation and hurt real people. Which, he did. Or when you brings specific people into your equation, which he did. So he’s past any pity to me.

I think this makes for a good (or at least potent,) illustration of what’s been going wrong with so many conservative public figures with hard lines that sex is a bad thing (though you definitely need to present the public face first if you want to keep the potential of anyone thinking through it.) This strict bottling up of urges makes people desperately susceptible to the first kink that grabs their attention. I don’t expect it to start as child cannibalism but there’s an easy to trace path for that out of the more common type of child abuse that we all expected to see here when we clicked our way in.

I don’t think this guy was subject to the kind of unwavering praise a lot of public officials surround themselves with but I can see some potential for getting the same triggers through a few other channels.

And even non-fetishes. My fantasies thoughts-while-masturbating, personally, CAN go places that it took me a very, very long time to be at all comfortable with internally, but it’s never been a compulsion or a sole focus.

The legitimate issue here is “actions that cause horrific harm,” not theatrical “EWWWWWWWW”ing.

The problem here is the child porn and the wanting to eat a kid, guys. Not the fact that he was a Christian, although that sure is a notable data point.

To me the problem is this: Isn’t the xian “holy spirit” supposed to be able to “heal” or “excorcise” this person? After all, all that talk about how homosexuality can be “cured”, and then there’s this?

Then there’s the little problem with “discernment”. Xians claim that their holy spirit is able to give discernment. Obviously it failed on both counts.

And even non-fetishes. My fantasies thoughts-while-masturbating, personally, CAN go places that it took me a very, very long time to be at all comfortable with internally, but it’s never been a compulsion or a sole focus.

The legitimate issue here is “actions that cause horrific harm,” not theatrical “EWWWWWWWW”ing.

Good point, with the non-fetishes and thoughts-while-masturbating as opposed to ‘fantasy’ both. ‘Fantasy’ has some kind of screwy implications as a word, particularly since it implies that the person with them even kind of wants the things imagined to happen. Very often not true. (though again, very clearly the proper word for this guy’s case, since he acted upon them)

Also, I feel your pain. Coming to terms with the weird-ass shit your brain throws at you is hard, even when it’s not a major thing.

And agreed. I’ve always been real iffy with victimless crimes, when the only crime is that the person liked things that were Just Too Icky.

There are some, some of us commenters at this site, learned that long ago.

I need to learn to yield to that voice in my head which says, don’t go there, don’t even click it.

One of the really, really, really scary things about child pornography is that yes, the child is a victim, the child could not give permission for photos like this, but, years later, when the child is an adult, an adult trying to deal with the past, the knowledge is right there — those photos are still out there. Whether the photos are a year old, or 35 years old, will they ever disappear? Probably not.

This sickens me (literally) on multiple levels.

I know that some of us are wired to be aroused in ways that are not acceptable. There is no law against being a pedophile. Acting on that urge, though. That is the crime.

@paulchapman – and that’s exactly why the whole “but he was just a quiet person” / “but he was just a god fearing man” / “but he was just a quiet churchgoer” defense breaks down. There are bad people all over the place. It doesn’t matter if you attend church or not. It doesn’t matter if you play D&D or not. It doesn’t matter if you watch horror movies or not. Some people in all those groups (and more) commit horrible acts. Many don’t. Church or not doesn’t seem to be a deciding factor (except in violence against abortion clinics – that’s nearly always religious based, it seems)

@48 Ogvorbis: The problem with anti-pedophilia legislation is that it doesn’t distinguish between the production, distribution, and possession of real images of children who were actually abused and victimized and the production, distribution, and possession of drawings or other clearly non-abusive media. With no outlet for his wiring that is both legal AND moral, what do you expect to happen?

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

To me the problem is this: Isn’t the xian “holy spirit” supposed to be able to “heal” or “excorcise” this person?

Are you seriously asking this on a predominantly atheist message board?

Just more evidence that it doesn’t exist.

Do you seriously believe any less in the Holy Spirit now than you did before you read the article?

Yes, this is an example to Christians about where their “Holy Spirit” seems to have missed someone (although I don’t suggest you try it; when they inevitably say it happened for a reason and he (found|will find) redemption in prison, you might not be able to resist the urge to deck them). What does this have to do with a comment thread on an atheist message board asking “what is it with these Christianists?” We’re supposed to be the ones dealing with evidence, and the evidence is that Christianity doesn’t cause this sort of thing. It may shelter it at times, and that is definitely something that needs to be spoken out against if that is the case (facts of this matter are still pending, on that front).

I mean, not tone trolling. Disgust is natural, and even just plain tiredness that Christian figures keep getting caught Doing Bad Things. I just noticed that several of the initial posts were fixated on the Christian part and not the child cannibalism part, and thought I’d forestall the inevitable trolls (although it occurs to me that it seems this blog doesn’t get those same Christianist trolls anymore, must be the shift in blog commentariat emphasis) by recognizing that disgusting violent crimes in general are not dependent on faith.

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

Apparently you missed the part where he made a plan with someone to kidnap a child but chickened out, and where neighbors expressed concern about the children they saw riding in his car…

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

Somebody hurt that child to get the pornographic images. Somebody either took the clothing off the child, or convinced the child to disrobe. Someone told that child how to pose, to smile. And even if it did not hurt the child back then, it continues to hurt. I know that photos were taken, of me, by my scoutmaster when I was nine or ten. I know, now, what those photos were for. And I will never know if those photos of that little blond kid wearing a cub scout shirt and nothing else are still out there. The demand — personal and commercial — ensures that children are abused. And the abuse does not stop. The hurt does not stop. The guilt, the self-blame, the knowing that I still can’t go meat-space public with what happened, does not stop. So no, it is not just icky pornography. It is a hurt that does not end. And your attitude, the argument you just made, will not do anything to either help victims heal or, even more important, stop the trafficking and production of child pornography.

Hate to break it to you, but plenty of atheists rape while thinking rape is wrong.

That blood-curdling Reddit thread proves this quite succinctly.

Though, i don’t think it’s *merely* the fact that he was christian that is making people bring up his religion, so much as THAT religion’s constant No True Scotsman conga line every time one of them is outed as sick twist. We are all aware that they are sick twists who are also atheists. The difference is, we don’t pretend that our imaginary friend says we’re better than everyone else, and therefore we’re forgiven no matter what we do.

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

It seemed to me that he had photographs of actual children, so that’s not just Just Too Icky porn, that’s the product of someone’s abuse. Also, he was conspiring to kidnap a child.

Now, if he wasn’t going to kidnap a child and all he had was drawings, yeah, I would be behind you.

@John Morales. My mind is boggled that we as a movement are embroiled in useless infighting that makes us weaker while we have real threats such as systematic child-abuse by fundamentalists.

@Kyllarm,

I find it extremely unlikely that any of my friends have ever had anything to do with child porn, or we wouldn’t be friends in the first place, but I do agree that you don’t necessarily know everything about those you interact with on a daily basis-so it is theocratically possible.

However, your posts seem to suggest that this type of behavior is NORMAL, and that is very fucking creepy indeed.

“Somebody hurt that child to get the pornographic images.”
Perhaps. The article talks about images, but doesn’t specify if they were pictures or invented images. Assuming they were pictures of real children, then yes, that was wrong.

“Somebody either took the clothing off the child, or convinced the child to disrobe. Someone told that child how to pose, to smile. And even if it did not hurt the child back then, it continues to hurt. I know that photos were taken, of me, by my scoutmaster when I was nine or ten. I know, now, what those photos were for. And I will never know if those photos of that little blond kid wearing a cub scout shirt and nothing else are still out there.”
I’m sorry someone did that to you.

“The demand — personal and commercial — ensures that children are abused. And the abuse does not stop. The hurt does not stop. The guilt, the self-blame, the knowing that I still can’t go meat-space public with what happened, does not stop. So no, it is not just icky pornography. It is a hurt that does not end. And your attitude, the argument you just made, will not do anything to either help victims heal or, even more important, stop the trafficking and production of child pornography.”

You cannot stop it. You cannot, at least not yet, stop people from having that paraphilia. I’m sure there are good, gold-star pedophiles out there, with self control I can’t even imagine, who could go their entire lives unable to be sexually attracted to anything but children, but do not seek out pornography of any sort to satisfy that urge in a relatively safe, moral way. The failure to distinguish between pornography created by harming and pornography that is not created by harming closes down a path that many would find useful in leading otherwise perfectly unobjectionable lives.

1) I think one of the key takeaways from this whole vile scenario is how harmful the “atheists = immoral; religious = moral” can actually be. Brown was a man who had full run of his community because of his ties to his church and his religious broadcasting roles. If he had been an atheist, imagine how reviled he would have been around that community, how little people would have trusted him. We have to break down this stereotype precisely BECAUSE it provides top-cover to the more vile elements in our society.

2) @Skeptic Dude: If you honestly think that enforcing some ethical standards in our community actually weakens us, then you have a very odd understanding of what “weakness” actually is. If we expect to make any in-roads during issues like this, we HAVE to deal with our own issues with sexism and misogyny. Ignoring the fact that by not dealing with it we’re cutting ourselves off from over half the human population, it also makes our message that much less palatable to the very people we’re trying to reach, simply because it allows them to make a false-equivalency.

We can go after people like this, AND we can focus on our own internal problems. Not only can we multitask as a movement, but we MUST do so, if only to ensure our own long-term viability.

I really don’t care if you think I’m creepy. I’ve lived with my paraphilia (once again I’d like to stress it has nothing to do with children) for years. There’s nothing you can think or say that I haven’t already. I’ve attempted suicide because of it. Is my illness normal? No. Is it more common than you’d probably be comfortable with? Yes.

I’m not advocating that pedophiles be allowed to harm whoever they want, or that being ill justifies harmful behavior. But there are definitely ways we, as a society, could reduce or minimize the number of ill people who are hurting other people. We HAVE to get over that judgemental-prick reaction, though.

This, basically. You really can’t control your paraphilias themselves. Just having them doesn’t make you a bad person, and I can reasonably assume that there are people with, uh… kiddiecannabilismfucking fetishes that are still normal, properly functioning people.

(Okay if I’m to be entirely honest I have trouble wrapping my head around that, but I want to give benefit of the doubt)

The issue comes when you go past imagination and harmless simulation and hurt real people.

I just wanted to say, yes it’s accurate, y’all don’t have to assume. There ARE people in real life with creepy and disturbing fetishes, fetishes involving doing real, major damage to others, who never do commit crimes. Gavin de Becker and John Douglas both say so (why am I citing two prominent criminologists all over these days) – that they commonly encounter suspects who only indulge in fantasy. HOWEVER, given that almost all suspects who DO commit personalized sex crimes also indulge in fantasy and porn about them, such fantasies are a very, very serious red flag.

I am not disagreeing with you. I was trying to point out something that you may not have considered and yes, this is an emotional and difficult subject for me. I have, for the second time in a week, been violently ill because of discussions about sexual abuse and photography. I’ve had my say and now am going to curl up under the comforter with the fan on full blast (don’t knock it, it works).

@77 Ogvorbis
I certainly didn’t mean to hurt you, and I’m sorry that I did. I did (and do) think about the lingering damage problem, and I honestly don’t know what to do about that. If I ever meet you at a con or something, I’ll buy you a beer?

HOWEVER, given that almost all suspects who DO commit personalized sex crimes also indulge in fantasy and porn about them, such fantasies are a very, very serious red flag.

I can totally get how someone with a fantasy for the crime that’s already a suspect is a major red flag, but I’m a bit iffy about the part about those who commit the crimes indulging in similar fantasies. It sounds a bit like saying that most people in car accidents have cars, therefor cars are a red flag.

I have a feeling I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying with that though.

Ok that’s what I thought. I have to wonder if it would “suffice”.

I would hope. If nothing else, it’s better than nothing.

Also, I have to wonder what acceptance in general would do to tendencies for people to commit sexual crimes. I can’t help but think that there would be a train of thought going something like “Well, I’m already wrong/illegal just for having the thoughts, indulging them just makes it more wrong/illegal”.

In fact, my theory for why we see so many (it seems) super-anti-porn-christians indulging in the more dangerous or harmful fetishes is that also. “I’m already going to hell just for masturbating. It’s not like indulging in child-cannibalism-porn is going to send me to super-hell”

Obviously another sad case of person with issues that has crossed the line to criminal activity, with all that entails – but wouldn’t it be nice if the public and media discussion focused more on the way that these people so often find shelter under the cloak of presumed respectability that religiosity provides?

What you’ll find is the sex columnist giving props to pedophiles who acknowledge, who are in full awareness of their sexual kink, but who are also in full awareness of the terrible harm they could do to others and who therefore consciously abstain. And these people, whom Savage calls “Virtuous Pedophiles” go beyond abstaining: they proactively manage their paraphilia. They do not, for instance, go into teaching; become scoutmasters; take on youth pastor duties; and most onerously, do not have children, or marry women who have children, or hang around children, or babysit, etc. etc.

It must be a rotten life; and as with any group of human beings, perfection is impossible, some are going to offend, often with (their) suicide as a result. And that’s what the discussion about not-harmed-anyone porn is all about.

I can totally get how someone with a fantasy for the crime that’s already a suspect is a major red flag, but I’m a bit iffy about the part about those who commit the crimes indulging in similar fantasies. It sounds a bit like saying that most people in car accidents have cars, therefor cars are a red flag.

I have a feeling I’m misinterpreting what you’re saying with that though.

The difference is, most people who have cars aren’t fantasizing, routinely and in realistic detail, about using them to plow over other people or cars or whatever. (At least I certainly hope not…)

See, interpersonal-type crimes, such as predatory sex crimes, only happen BECAUSE the criminal enjoys those acts, fantasizes about them, and is willing to go to some trouble to make the fantasy happen. They don’t happen by accident or negligence. Again, what de Becker and Douglas say is that in their experience with criminals, the urge to have this kind of fantasy already exists. Then they seek out whatever sort of porn, violence etc. is available in the culture that suits their fantasy jones to fuel it and possibly escalate it.

Sorry if that’s not very clear (bad headspace here). I really do recommend reading Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” specifically, since his job involves assessing the really dangerous individuals that need to be stopped versus the ones that most likely are only fantasizing and just need to be closely monitored.

To the people who say that Brown was just looking at pictures, pictures someone else took, so it really is kind of victimless, think of this.

Say I buy an ivory tusk, a real one. “You bastard, an elephant died to get that tusk!” someone might say. I could answer, “No, don’t worry about that — this tusk is 100 years old. That elephant would have been dead 70 years already anyway.” That might hold the accuser off for a moment.

Then I could say, “Look at these other tusks in my collection! Aren’t they wonderful?” “Are they 100 years old?” “Oh, no, this one is 20 years old, this one is five, this one is less than a month old.” “You bastard!” “Nah, I didn’t kill any of the elephants. Hold on, my phone is ringing. Hmm, caller ID says it is one of my ivory merchants; I have a standing order from him to find some ivory from an African forest elephant.”

Even though I might not have shot any elephants myself, I’m complicit by helping create a market. It doesn’t matter if the tusk is 100 years old or hacked off an elephant yesterday.

Kyllarm. I’m sorry paraphilia is socially isolating. Yes, the world would be a better place if people with paraphilias were seen as people first, and weren’t too petrified to seek help or assistance. Screwed-up Fundie attitudes to sexuality make the problem worse.

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

“Wrong” and “illegal” aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. The fact that the porn exists means there’s a market for making porn that that involves the exploitation and abuse of people, children. Even if any of those images were staged, or compiled, or whatever, it’s still going to reinforce the idea that a market exists (which I don’t deny it does) and therefore more images will be produced – by any number of means.

2 Kings 6:28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

to sum up, I guess I can say, willingness to victimize other people, real people who suffer, to indulge one’s personal desires, isn’t any kind of fetish. It’s entitlement, narcissism, something like that… an independent trait that’s explosive in anyone, no matter what fetishes they also have.

See, interpersonal-type crimes, such as predatory sex crimes, only happen BECAUSE the criminal enjoys those acts, fantasizes about them, and is willing to go to some trouble to make the fantasy happen. They don’t happen by accident or negligence. Again, what de Becker and Douglas say is that in their experience with criminals, the urge to have this kind of fantasy already exists.

I see your point in that, but it feels like an instance of selection bias. Of course the crimes only happen because the criminal has fantasies as a reason to enjoy the crime. My issue is the implication that comes with that that those with fantasies have a tendency to want to act upon them in criminal ways.

Also, in retrospect, a better comparison than car crashes would be gun crimes. Everyone who commits a gun crime owns a gun, and I can see why, say, being an NRA member should make you a red flag if you’re already a suspect. But owning a gun/having a certain paraphilia shouldn’t set you up as a red flag in itself.

The fact that the porn exists means there’s a market for making porn that that involves the exploitation and abuse of people, children. Even if any of those images were staged, or compiled, or whatever, it’s still going to reinforce the idea that a market exists (which I don’t deny it does) and therefore more images will be produced – by any number of means.

The use of the images of children in pornographic material is wrong.

But images that are simulated or otherwise not real are not used at another person’s expense. They don’t hurt anyone. And the idea that a market exists being reinforced… well, I for one am perfectly happy with reinforcing the idea that there’s a market for victimless porn. That means that there are could-be abusers who are taking the steps to not be abusers by indulging in their paraphilias in healthy ways. And I don’t think that supporting victimless porn will support the market for porn of victims. Those are two different animals, particularly if we make a distinction of legality between the two.

@kyllarm Obviously I don’t know what your paraphilia is since you’ve been very careful to not mention it, but I want to give you a little support. A lot of people have paraphilias and kinks that make other people uncomfortable V trg bss ba univat arrqyrf fubirq vagb zl fxva naq bgure guvatf hfhnyyl pbafvqrerq “rqtr cynl” va OQFZ pvepyrf. You have to find peace with who you are and as long as you aren’t (non-consensually) hurting anyone you’ve nothing to be ashamed about.

Grimalkin, my rot13’d answer to Hairhead above goes into that a bit. Also, seriously, I recommend reading de Becker’s and John Douglas’s writings on the subject, I’m not giving it sufficient treatment here (and it’d be damned disturbing, not least to me, if I tried).

Re this:

And I don’t think that supporting victimless porn will support the market for porn of victims. Those are two different animals, particularly if we make a distinction of legality between the two.

You know, no matter how many times I read stories like these, it never seizes to amaze me and numb my mind. I can’t grasp how it is possible for things like this to happen even though I know it has happened.

@Kyllarm, I find it extremely unlikely that any of my friends have ever had anything to do with child porn, or we wouldn’t be friends in the first place, but I do agree that you don’t necessarily know everything about those you interact with on a daily basis-so it is theocratically possible. (Enmphasdis added – ed.

I’m guessing you meant “theoretically” but I kind of think that typo is apt!

And, yeah, when it comes to typos I’m the last one who can talk I know. I just found that particular one kinda wryly amusing.

That was incredibly hard to actually put into writing. There’s a reason I don’t pursue relationships and I don’t trust people with that information about me. It’s ruined every romantic relationship I’ve ever had.

WOW PZ Myocrite. Now you are happy and want to blame Christians ?
What happen to your argument all christians are generally nice and good people, someone’s actions doesn’t represent all, but you would rather be ashamed of an atheist, right ?!

Grow up PZ Myocrite. Your yardstick grows in different size whenever it is convenient for you. Or do you use your middle stick as yardstick for such inconsistency, don’t you ?

Grimalkin, my rot13′d answer to Hairhead above goes into that a bit. Also, seriously, I recommend reading de Becker’s and John Douglas’s writings on the subject, I’m not giving it sufficient treatment here (and it’d be damned disturbing, not least to me, if I tried).

Ah, I thought I’d missed a rot13’d thing, that clears it up a lot. And I’ll have to consider doing so, considering that I do sort of have an interest in the subject (Augh, that sounds creepy to say)

That’s a good point (and a creepy one- ugh, those pageants…), and it certainly would be bad for it to become normalized.

I’m very reluctant to paint all pedo-porn (including victimless porn) as equally bad though. I want there to be ways for pedophiles to get relief for their paraphilias without having to resort to things that harm children.

Well, shit. Stephen Law gets it *exactly right*. It’s easy to hate and demonize people with paraphilias when you don’t have to understand what a brain-stem powerful thing a misfiring sex drive is. Over years, decades, over an entire life, how many people could honestly claim to never want to have sex the only sex they want to have, never to seek out pornography if they can’t have it, never to feel their intent to be good and their self-image slowly dissolve? *That* is why fuck the judgemental pricks in the top half of this thread.

y’know, more on the original topic, de Becker and Douglas also discuss the common error of being overly suspicious of *all* teachers, coaches, etc adults who work closely with children. Just because child predators gravitate to child-filled environments does not mean that being a teacher/coach/whatever is a red flag in and of itself. It means, rather, that a) those professions need robust, clear-headed monitoring systems in place, without blanket assumptions of either guilt OR innocence, because the professions enrich for predators otherwise; and more importantly, b) that when an adult goes to an unusual amount of trouble to be around children in ways that are secretive or don’t match up with doing the job, THAT is the aforementioned huge red flag.

Where would he get an idea like that?
2 Kings 6:28 Then he asked her, “What’s the matter?”
She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son so we may eat him,’ but she had hidden him.”

We have enemies like this, and we somehow have time and resources to waste on the “deep rifts”. It boggles the mind…

Apparently unlike some people, I am capable (barely) of holding two ideas in my mind simultaneously.
Who knows, SD – one day, you might get there too.

. . .

dinamalar

WOW PZ Myocrite. Now you are happy and want to blame Christians ?
What happen to your argument all christians are generally nice and good people, someone’s actions doesn’t represent all, but you would rather be ashamed of an atheist, right ?!

Grow up PZ Myocrite. Your yardstick grows in different size whenever it is convenient for you. Or do you use your middle stick as yardstick for such inconsistency, don’t you ?

I can only hope that a person with this level of… panache for written argument returns to further expound.
Sadly, I suspect we’re having a ‘chess with pigeon’ moment here.

@121 Yeah, cannibalism in times where the choices are cannibalism or death by starvation is hard to condemn. I know of one shipwreck where the survivors drew lots to decide who would be killed in order to feed the rest. I could probably bring myself to eat someone already dead in order to survive but to kill someone and eat them? I don’t know if my survival instinct would outweigh my horror at doing something so against my ethical values. I would hope the latter but it’s such an extreme situation that I don’t think anyone can know what they would do.

So even if the pornography was simulated (and I’ve seen no indication that was the case), the child porn is still playing with fire. And clearly he wasn’t keeping it under control, since he was (at the very least) planning to kill and eat a specific little boy. I cannot and will not condone the use of child pornography in any medium and I’m rather disgusted that there are people who are doing so right here. I’ve said before this place would have to change dramatically to be radfem and this just proves my point.

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

This isn’t to contradict all the other useful things Kyllarm has said, but this quote really sounds like he thinks acquiring images of naked and or dead kids didn’t hurt anyone.

I don’t have a problem with people role playing underage sex or having vivid fantasy or drawing things, but that isn’t what Brown apparently was up to.

Also, the “[blank] kind of media turns people into antisocial zombies” crap has dug a hole so deep over the years that I’m extremely cynical about even a plausibly well-designed study that claims to find an effect consistent with prejudices. Between confirmation bias and this effect…

Pteryxx, the point is that–much as has been seen in stereotype threat–you can prime someone for a particular response with pornography. And as you yourself said upthread, there’s a normalizing effect from pornography.

But whatever. I’m not going to engage in this patent absurdity. Do enjoy keeping yourselves so open-minded that your brains fall out.

I didn’t see anything in the article to indicate that he actually did anything wrong, as opposed to illegal. He’s been accused of possessing Just Too Icky porn, with no indication of whether he actually hurt anyone to get it.

Go back to the Tampa Bay coverage, linked from Justin Griffith’s blog.

The affidavit describing Brown’s extensive Internet chats about eating children is grotesque, even by the jaded standards of child abuse investigators. Brown and Arnett were discovered during an international child pornography crackdown that has led to 40 arrests in six countries. The pair’s exchanges stood out to investigators.

“In my time here at this agency,” Feinstein said, “I’ve never seen anything this gruesome.”

Emphasizing this: The pair’s exchanges stood out to investigators. Meaning, these folks whose careers involve sorting through child porn rings and tracking down child predators saw an unusual level of danger signs in their evidence.

The Mellow Monkey- I am not a scientist, but I must say that I find numerous issues with that study.

As far as I can tell, there was no differentiation between how men acted after porn itself, or how they acted when simply aroused (seeing as, you know, porn does that). What certain behaviors meant- longer touching meaning more aroused and more connected- seems to just be assumed. Whether or not one film was more sexually stimulating seems to be assumed. (and honestly, between the two films they mentioned, one is actually porn, one is a how-to. Not the same thing.) And whether or not a film is degrading seems to be pulled from the ass of whoever determined them. How is a video that depicts a woman !TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH SHE ENJOYS WHAT IS HAPPENING! degrading? The difference between the two videos isn’t degrading-ness, it’s explicitness, and as such it seems to me that the differentiating factor between how the men acted was how aroused they were. Not if they had seen something more degrading.

But even if that experiment didn’t have holes, it still doesn’t prove your point. You would have proved that porn makes men act like dicks, not at all anything like how viewing certain fetish material makes you more dangerous.

Yes, that most certainly is what everyone is saying here. I, as a victim of exploitation for child porn, am definitely of the opinion that child porn harms no one. That is totally my opinion.

There really needs to be a short, pithy term for people who are willing to completely trample actual victims in the name of their pet moral crusades, while pretending to be advocating for them. Any thoughts? :/

Am I the only one that sees some sections of these posts as garbled strings? A lock of blockquotes and lines at the ends of posts look like this:

Va bar pung pvgrq va gur pbzcynvag, Neargg qrfpevorq qebjavat n

I am somewhat glad the topic of paraphilia has come up. I can certainly sympathize with kyllarm and others that have fetishes that cannot be realized in real life, having some interesting ones of my own I am in a similar situation. Luckily they do not rule my life, they are just a component of myself which I cannot act on. Some people have it far worse. I think this is one of the few forums where I would feel comfortable bringing up the existence of those and would not expect it to blow up in my face, to be labeled as sick, etc. and I am glad it was handled well.

Am I the only one that sees some sections of these posts as garbled strings?

That’s the “ROT-13″ thing people keep talking about. If you Google “ROT-13″ the first link is a page with a box into which you can copy and paste the garbles to turn them into readable text, and vice versa.

There really needs to be a short, pithy term for people who are willing to completely trample actual victims in the name of their pet moral crusades, while pretending to be advocating for them. Any thoughts?

@121 Yeah, cannibalism in times where the choices are cannibalism or death by starvation is hard to condemn. I know of one shipwreck where the survivors drew lots to decide who would be killed in order to feed the rest.

Let’s also say that elephants stay alive after being poached for their ivory, and that the thought of having people see pictures of their ivory haunts them throughout the rest of their lives.

That’s a much better argument, though we don’t seem to worry about it when it comes to the victims of other crimes. For instance, Victoria Lindsay was severely beaten by several classmates and the video is all over the web, not just underground on p2p sites. If you Google her name, the first page of Google results don’t just have news coverage, but several sites enthusiastically advertising “Brutal Cheerleader Beatdown” and even the legit news coverage is full of comments from peopel who apparently really enjoyed the video. Some people express sorrow for the victim, but hardly anyone wants the video suppressed and no one wants to arrest anyone who watches it.

Considering the huge disparity, I think the the harsh punishments for child porn possession are more motivated by squick than concern for the victims.

…and after further thought, frankly IMHO, it would have been much better if the topic of paraphilia had NOT come up in discussion about someone formally charged with conspiracy to kidnap a real child at his church, ostensibly to murder and cannibalize them.

What I *don’t* have evidence for is the probability of any given person being a, hmm, paraphilia-apologist who’s actually dangerous and concealing it, in parallel with rape-apologists. There’s plenty of evidence that actual rapists are overrepresented among espousers of rape apologia. IMHO, it’s *plausible* or even likely that many folks who defend paraphilias are actually predators. (Heck, according to Lisak’s research that 6-8% or so of all men are rapists already, we’ve all talked to dozens of them without knowing it.) So I don’t have a solution to this, except to be extremely vigilant about the topic and any subtle elisions that arise.

The only evidence I know of that individuals with dangerous paraphilias can still be unthreatening is in de Becker’s and Douglas’s writings and the criminology research that backs them, because their jobs are to distinguish between harmless and threatening behavior (de Becker) and between suspicious and guilty individuals (Douglas). I doubt they’re apologists for the predators they put away.

What I *don’t* have evidence for is the probability of any given person being a, hmm, paraphilia-apologist who’s actually dangerous and concealing it, in parallel with rape-apologists.

IMHO, it’s *plausible* or even likely that many folks who defend paraphilias are actually predators.

Make up your mind.

The only evidence I know of that individuals with dangerous paraphilias can still be unthreatening is in de Becker’s and Douglas’s writings

Gee, you don’t suppose there might possibly be some sampling bias there? Like, for instance, you could start with the fact that insinuations like yours seem to be made pretty much every time the topic comes up…

When a video of a beating is viewed by someone, they are not continuing to beat the person.

I don’t agree that having folks spreading and enjoying a video of a beating would NOT likely be distressing to the victim. However, it’s less likely (…I hope) that the victim’s automatically blamed for provoking it, or that 20-some percent of everyone will be severely beaten during their lives, and so forth. (though police brutality, treatment of immigrants and such don’t give me much faith there.)

@156: Assuming they have good evidence he was really conspiring to kidnap and murder a kid, then the paraphilia discussion is indeed irrelevant. I assume we’ll find out more soon about what they have on him.

Yeah, a conversation about paraphilia’s is a… weird place for a discussion of child cannibalism to turn to.

I don’t think anyone here’s been being a paraphilia-apologist though. Or at least, not a predation-apologist. That said, yeah, extra vigilance is definitely called for, because someone could show up who isn’t just interested in debating whether the issue is in acting on something or thinking about it.

@159: A significant portion of comments seem to saying she was asking for it because she allegedly flirted with the boyfriend of one of her attackers, or saying she was dumb for not fighting back or going to the house of a girl who she knew didn’t like her. Victim blaming is actually pretty widespread.

To repeat a question I asked at chez Ophelia: how does the Department of “Homeland Security” get brought into a case of retail psychosis not involving terrorism, foreign plots, or anything else related to their official mandate?

The Victoria Lindsay beating happened while I was taking a media law class, so it came up in discussion. A student actually raised her hands to argue the girl was dumb for getting in that situation. This didn’t go over well with the prof, especially since the topic was the ethics of showing the video on the news.

Though of course, the media shouldn’t get away at all with posting video of someone having a crime committed against them (particularly something brutal like a beating) without their explicit permission. That’s just fucked up.

I certainly never received any support for the mostly-not-sexual harassment I experienced, and I worked very hard at avoiding physical attacks and there were really only a handful of them (though I lived in fairly constant fear of them through most of Middle School and was threatened on a near-daily basis).

I appear to have been muted or otherwise prevented from posting. On the off chance this gets through, though, I want to say two things:

One; my comment about him not appearing to have harmed anyone was based on an incomplete version of the article. Having read a more complete version, I was wrong to post that.

Two; I don’t think it’s at all weird to discuss paraphilia in this context. That’s what he has – a paraphilia involving children and cannibalism. I don’t doubt that the response to other, similarly extreme, forms of the illness would be similarly dehumanizing. He needed help BEFORE it got to the point where he was hurting other people with his illness. Our society’s knee-jerk “MONSTER!!!!111″ reaction to the illness does NOT protect anyone – it merely sets pedophiles up for failure and kids up for victimization. EVERYONE loses.

I watched the video and I’m disappointed. One would think that somebody that actually planned to eat a child “because of pornography” would have a better argument against porn than that God can read our minds.

There really needs to be a short, pithy term for people who are willing to completely trample actual victims in the name of their pet moral crusades, while pretending to be advocating for them. Any thoughts? :/

“It was only a fantasy, I would never actually do it” is a line of defense that doesn’t work very well, especially when you’ve had detailed discussions about organization and planning. If this man and his correspondent were terrorists preparing the blowing up of a building, I have no doubt they’d be found guilty. I don’t see why it would be different here.

As a newsman, I’ve seen some pretty revolting things in my life and have a pretty strong stomach for the worst that humanity has to offer. But that was the first time I’ve actually thrown up into my coffee cup.

I have no problem with people having kinks and paraphillia at all (I’m taking the consent of all parties as a given, here). I think people should be free to live out their sexuality in the way that works for them and with consenting adults for whom it works as well, without judgement or other people’s “squick” factor dictating.

I do have two problems with the responses in this thread, though:

1.) Pornography featuring children, even if it is “art” or digitally created and no actual, living children were harmed in the making of said “fake” pornography is still harmful on a cultural level. While I agree that the penalties involved for posession of this kind of “fake”, if you will, child porn shouldn’t be as severe, one can not just shrug it off as “like condoms, it’s harmless and necessary”, and I’ll tell you why (2 reasons):

a. Children cannot consent to any sexual activity under ANY circumstances. And yet, there is this meme in society that that one kid, you know, maybe she actually wanted it and in any case, it’s not “that” bad, just people with too high a squick factor getting grossed out.

Well, I was that kid. I never said no. When the person who eventually went on to rape me when I was something like eight (no I can’t remember exactly how old I was) asked me for the first time if I wanted to “play a game”, I said “yes” even though my cousin, who was the same age as me and there as well, had the good sense to say “no”.

I was four. He was 16.

I’ve spent my entire life living with the fact that I was somehow complicit. That in just this one case, MY case, maybe he didn’t know better and it’s not as if I ever stopped him, right? Besides, what kind of idiot doesn’t recognize “playing a game” for what it is? Maybe I *did* secretly want the attention, I mean, my parents were divorcing, and besides, worse things have happened to better people, he didn’t know better either, it’s not that bad… Right?

WRONG.

And yet it’s still, 30 years and numerable suicide attempts later, impossible for me to believe.

My point is: “fake” child porn feeds into exactly the same toxic waste that “real” child porn does culturally, even though no actual, living kids are harmed in the process of actually making said “fake” porn. It reinforces this idea and narrative that, sometimes, under “special” circumstances, some kids are little Lolitas who are so “mature” and know exactly what they want, and only a prudish, pearl clutching society disproves.

b. Children can not consent to any sexual activity. Under ANY circumstances, including in fantasy. By definition, ANY sexual activity engaged in with them would be rape.

This is where, for me, the difference comes in between adults roleplaying as children and actual children, even drawn or digitally created children, being used sexually.

With an adult roleplaying a child, the person is still an adult and can consent to the play and everything that goes with it. With a child, a child CAN NOT consent. It CAN NOT be “sex”, it MUST BE “rape”.

If someone needs to see a child getting raped, even “just” a drawn kid, in order to get aroused or fulfill their sexual needs, then for me, the societal cost for their arousal and/or sexual needs is just too high.

In exactly the same way as the cost of watching the actual rape of a grown woman/man (not talking about consenting games etc. I’m talking about rape) even when it’s drawn or digitally created or happens in a cartoon and no actual living person got physically hurt, or even in “jest” and as “just a joke” is too high in the rape culture (which includes the rape of children which is just all too abundant, unfortunately) we live in.

2.) Apologetics I’m deeply uncomfortable with the “poor guy is just a misunderstood pedophile who never actually *acted* on it, pedophiles are so discriminated against, if only there was less discrimination there would be less molested and/or raped children)” I see going on in some threads.

From what I’ve seen, it becomes a way to deflect criticism regarding the serious nature of his crimes into a discussion of “oh well, we don’t know if it was “porn-porn”, maybe it was “victimless”!, maybe he just had porn that was ‘too squicky for our prude society to deal with'” rather than ZOMG this guy went as far as planning to abduct, kill and eat a child! (Allegedly). AND then they found child porn in his posession.

I’m not saying that anyone in this thread specifically did this, just that this is what I’ve seen through the years in discussions of these nature in various settings, and I think Pteryxx was right to mention it upthread.

This is (obviously) a very difficult subject for me to deal with personally, since I’ve been a direct victim of someone else’s pedophilia, and I sure as hell don’t want to contribute to the marginalization of people based solely on traits over which they have no control. However, where does one ethically draw a line between “oh, it’s just a kink” and “wow, this really contributes to a metric fucktonne of abuse in our society, maybe we shouldn’t be so cavalier about this”?

I’m deeply uncomfortable with the “poor guy is just a misunderstood pedophile who never actually *acted* on it, pedophiles are so discriminated against, if only there was less discrimination there would be less molested and/or raped children)” I see going on in some threads.

Of course the claim he did not act on his predilections is simply wrong, since he was found to be in possession of pornographic images involving children.

Of course the claim he did not act on his predilections is simply wrong, since he was found to be in possession of pornographic images involving children.

Yep.

And is there no such charge as conspiracy to commit [insert crime here]?

I know that there is for crimes such as murder, fraud, etc.. The burden of proof is obviously high and it can be a slippery slope as to what is just people exploring an idea vs. actually planning a crime. The Cosmic Muffin knows we don’t want to get into some sort of Minority Report situation.

2.) Apologetics I’m deeply uncomfortable with the “poor guy is just a misunderstood pedophile who never actually *acted* on it, pedophiles are so discriminated against, if only there was less discrimination there would be less molested and/or raped children)” I see going on in some threads.

There are a few discussions going on in here. This particular guy, we have no sympathy for. There’s a lot of evidence that he did some particularly gruesome things, and he also has lots of images of real children in very bad situations.

There’s also a meta-discussion about harmful paraphilias, and how someone who does suffer through such feelings might not be able to bring themselves to seek treatment because it might be revealed to the community and their lives would be ruined.

@Skeptic Dude: If you honestly think that enforcing some ethical standards in our community actually weakens us, then you have a very odd understanding of what “weakness” actually is. If we expect to make any in-roads during issues like this, we HAVE to deal with our own issues with sexism and misogyny. Ignoring the fact that by not dealing with it we’re cutting ourselves off from over half the human population, it also makes our message that much less palatable to the very people we’re trying to reach, simply because it allows them to make a false-equivalency.

We can go after people like this, AND we can focus on our own internal problems. Not only can we multitask as a movement, but we MUST do so, if only to ensure our own long-term viability.

According to the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, Brown told agents that he and Kansas resident Michael Arnett, another alleged child cannibalism enthusiast, “did discuss killing, dismembering and eating” a specific boy at Gulf Coast Church.

I don’t even… I find it hard to process something this horrifying. That said, the fact that the person caught doing it was the kind of self righteous fundie who believes in a mind reading, peeping-tom god was not exactly a huge surprise.

How could anyone even contemplate murdering and eating a child? As PZ says, it is terrifying to think that there are actually people in the world who would take our ‘atheist baby eating’ jokes seriously, or would actually consider acting out such things.

Whenever I think that I have found the bottom of the pit of our species’ depravity – that no one could conceiveably sink lower – I find that I am, once again, underestimating how sick some people truly are. It will come as little surprise to anyone here that, more often than not, the worst offenders are numbered amongst the most nauseatingly pious.

No, you don’t. And the researchers even discussed known limitations of the study — that’s expected — but you seem to have overlooked this. You would have done better to just quote them.

As far as I can tell, there was no differentiation between how men acted after porn itself, or how they acted when simply aroused (seeing as, you know, porn does that).

«In an induction check university students evaluated the content of the three films. All three films were rated as equivalent to each other on “stimulating,” but the sexual films were higher than the non-sexual film on “sexual arousal,” and “sexually-explicit.”»

Both sexual films, as compared to the documentary, were sexually arousing. Thus, comparing the behavior of the men who watched the sexual films, to the behavior of those who watched the documentary, differentiates arousal-related behavior from non-arousal-related behavior.

And comparing the behavior of the men who watched the porn film, to the behavior of those who watched the explicit non-porn film, differentiates porn-arousal-related behavior from non-porn-arousal-related behavior.

What certain behaviors meant- longer touching meaning more aroused […] seems to just be assumed.

No, there is no such assumption. You seem to have assumed that they claimed such a meaning. They did not, and you will be unable to quote them attributing arousal to longer touching.

and more connected- seems to just be assumed.

Maybe you should try quoting; there might be something to discuss here.

Whether or not one film was more sexually stimulating seems to be assumed.

Again, no. There is no such assumption. You seem to be imagining things.

(and honestly, between the two films they mentioned, one is actually porn, one is a how-to. Not the same thing.)

Right, they’re not supposed to be the same thing. The “how-to” is Kule’s Loving Better; it’s visually explicit fucking.

And whether or not a film is degrading seems to be pulled from the ass of whoever determined them.

You seem to have pulled this claim out of your ass. The evaluation schema is from DOI 10.1080/03637759709376402.

How is a video that depicts a woman !TALKING ABOUT HOW MUCH SHE ENJOYS WHAT IS HAPPENING! degrading?

If enjoyment was synonymous with non-degradation, then nobody would get off on being degraded. Yet some people do get off on being degraded. Therefore, something can be both degrading and enjoyed.

I recommend checking a dictionary to see what degradation is. (Can I be afforded some annoying caps for emphasis here? Nine words? Okay: DEGRADATION INVOLVES A POWER OR STATUS DIFFERENTIAL. Oh hey cool, I got two words left. CHECK IT.)

The difference between the two videos isn’t degrading-ness, it’s explicitness,

I was thinking just yesterday that I couldn’t think of any other proffession of wich you would say something like “Don’t leave your child alone with him, he’s a Christian/Catholic Priest”… “Puppeteer of a Christian Show” didn’t cross my mind, but I guess I’ll add that too.

Really, what is it with this people that gets so fucked up in their heads so often? Disturbing.

I should be shocked by this stuff, but I grew up reading about the genocide in Guatemala, the horrors in Chile, there were still Nazi war criminals living in South America and so on.
Cannibalism certainly existed on the WWII East Front, as well as during China’s “Great Leap Forward” (of course, that cannibalism was motivated by starvation).

So, no, this stuff does not shock me. It makes me furious, but it does not shock me.

The pronoun confusion there literally caused cognitive arrest. I initially read that paragraph as you accusing PZ of … unsavory underwear behavior. Sat there going ‘I’m missing something’ for a good 15 seconds.

Gen, your comments were . . . how can I put this without being condescending or triggering? . . . cogent, calm, and rational, considering the subject. I appreciate the effort it must take for you to read such threads, and to comment on them with such personal detail. And all of your points are correct. So I am following up your thoughts with some of my own, which I hope will come off as likewise cogent, calm, and rational.

The question of whether to allow pedophiles access to and use of child pornography which was not generated from the use of actual children rests on its currently unknown impact. Would this porn defuse pedophiles, or would it egg them on to actual abuse? If it does defuse them and actually reduce sexual abuse, then, as ugly as it is, there is some justification for it. If it does stimulate pedophiles to offend, then it must continue to be restricted. If we, as a society, decide that even computer-generated child porn which can reduce abuse simply cannot be condoned, then we MUST find others ways to actively reduce child sexual abuse. Put it on the front burner.

Put that way, the porn question is simple; but how can we test it without playing some part in the sexual abuse of children? It is a horrifying conundrum, and I don’t have any answers at the moment.

But we can’t reduce child sexual abuse without going into the dark places, looking at the ugly details, analyzing causes, and experimenting with solutions. Gah, that’s nasty to write, Gen, because I know you’ll be reading this, and I empathize with the distress you feel when this subject comes up.

Lastly, I strongly condemn any pedophile who has acted on his/her desires with a non-consenting person; pedophiles who have kept themselves under control — I wouldn’t say I’m *applauding* them, but I approve of their actions, in that they have avoided harming children and society, and I have some limited empathy for the interior conflict they suffer.

Lastly, I strongly condemn any pedophile who has acted on his/her desires with a non-consenting person

I know this will just get lost amongst the myriad comments, but it has to be said, there is no such thing as a ‘consenting’ victim of paedophilia. A paedophile who has acted on their desires with a ‘person’ is a paedophile who has raped a child, because the ‘person’ of their desires is a child.

It is the exploitation and gross abuse of trust of a child by an adult for their own sexual satisfaction. A child is not an emotional/intellectual equal to an adult, ergo, there can *never* be a ‘consenting’ adult/child sexual relationship.

Oh, that effect is real and well known: if you run a lot of tests, some of them will find a significant result just by chance. Corrections for this have already been developed.

Yes, which is why I’m extremely unimpressed that the anti-porn crusaders have been throwing study after study after study after study at the wall for decades and still yell “SEE I TOLD YOU SO” when every so often one happens to stick.

If enjoyment was synonymous with non-degradation, then nobody would get off on being degraded. Yet some people do get off on being degraded. Therefore, something can be both degrading and enjoyed.

I recommend checking a dictionary to see what degradation is. (Can I be afforded some annoying caps for emphasis here? Nine words? Okay: DEGRADATION INVOLVES A POWER OR STATUS DIFFERENTIAL. Oh hey cool, I got two words left. CHECK IT.)

Then insofar as this definition, read straightforwardly, encompasses consensual BDSM, then “it’s degrading!” is not, in and of itself, a legitimate criticism of pornography.

He’s definitely the worst ventriloquist I’ve ever seen. He and his puppet have precisely the same voice.

And his lips move a lot. They use a rear quarter view (of him) camera angle when he talks as “the puppet” so that you won’t see his actual lips, but you can clearly see his cheek moving, and from that and his pronunciation I can guarantee that his lips are moving a whole lot—like normal speech, or close, not ventriloquism at all. He’s not even trying.

He managed not to learn anything from Sesame Street.

(Like if you’re not going to do any ventriloquism, maybe you shouldn’t do a ventriloquist act.)

[penny drops]

Ew. Now it occurs to me why he might do a ventriloquist act–it’s so he can get up close and personal with kids, and get them to trust him. A puppeteer behind a screen doesn’t get the same face time and personal trust.

I recommend checking a dictionary to see what degradation is. (Can I be afforded some annoying caps for emphasis here? Nine words? Okay: DEGRADATION INVOLVES A POWER OR STATUS DIFFERENTIAL. Oh hey cool, I got two words left. CHECK IT.)

[citation needed]

I have CHECKED IT and I think you’re wrong.

Degradation doesn’t have to involve a power differential of the sort you seem to suggest. (Though maybe I misunderstand.) You can be degraded by your peers or inferiors, e.g., in a “fall from grace” due to a scandal.

The only necessary “power differential” is in your own status over time, before and after. It is not necessary that the degradee have lower status than the degrader, and the reverse is not rare.

There doesn’t even have to be any particular degrader, e.g., if you slip up and reveal yourself to have done something embarrassing, through no particular effort of anyone else, that can be quite humiliating and thus “degrading.”

X can never consent to Y… sounds logical. The reason that I and others I know don’t cross the line is (apart from self-preservation) the latent social emotional damage to the child. As far as pornography goes, I’m certainly glad it exists and can’t speak to how I might be different if it didn’t.

Pornography featuring children, even if it is “art” or digitally created and no actual, living children were harmed in the making of said “fake” pornography is still harmful on a cultural level.

Isn’t that what they say about gay marriage?

And Darwinism. And atheism. And marijuana.

And alcohol, socialism, rock and roll, and women with bare arms or legs.

Children can not consent to any sexual activity. Under ANY circumstances, including in fantasy. By definition, ANY sexual activity engaged in with them would be rape.

This is where, for me, the difference comes in between adults roleplaying as children and actual children, even drawn or digitally created children, being used sexually.

You’re drawing a crucial distinction between one kind of make-believe child on the one hand, and on the other a different kind of make-believe child or real child?

That’s a pretty odd place to draw the line…

With an adult roleplaying a child, the person is still an adult and can consent to the play and everything that goes with it. With a child, a child CAN NOT consent. It CAN NOT be “sex”, it MUST BE “rape”.

This makes less than zero sense to me, at least at present.

It seems like you’re saying that an imagined drawn or digital child can’t consent, but an imagined roleplayed child can, so the former is “rape” but the latter is not.

(And I guess you mean that the former is “rape” but not rape, i.e. imaginary rape, and the latter is neither…)

It seems to me that if somebody’s roleplaying a child being statutorily raped, the imaginary child is being “raped” in the much same sense as a drawn or digital one being imaginarily statutorily raped.

Likewise, when consenting adults playact adult-on-adult nonconsensual sex, the “rapee” is being “raped” in much the same sense. (Except it’ plain “rape” where an imagined adult doesn’t give consent, rather than statutory rape where a child can’t effectively consent.)

If I understand you aright, I think you may be suffering from a lack of imagination.

For example, suppose somebody who fantasizes about either kind of rape knows full well that they shouldn’t actually rape anybody, adult or child, and why but they can imagine a universe in which the consequences for the rapee are good, not bad. (The victim find that they like it, and not be traumatized by having their choices overridden, and it will open them to a wonderful world of sexual pleasure, for which they’ll be eternally grateful, and far-fetched stuff like that.)

I don’t see how that’s necessarily worse than, say, fantasizing a violent universe in which you can shoot at enemy soldiers and not have moral qualms about their widows and orphan children and so on—like in your average shoot-em-up video game or martial arts movie or whatever.

In the case of plain violence, it’s pretty clear that most people can fantasize about horrific violence without acting out horrific violence in real life. It’s just a movie, or just a game, or whatever, and they know real life is very different.

I’ve shot thousands and thousands of “people” in games, but haven’t got the slightest desire to obtain or use a real gun. I only want to “kill” “people” in a consequence-free universe, uninhabited by real people. (Even if it’s a networked game where there’s a real person play my victim’s character, it’s just a very different thing from actual violence.)

Maybe this anaogy doesn’t work, because the psychology of pedophilia or of rape is crucially different from the psychology of violence, and fantasizing about one is somehow much worse than fantasizing about the other.

If so, that reasoning needs to be spelled out very clearly.

(Or should we be appalled by people who like World of Warcraft and City of Heroes, as we are by people who fantasize about child rape?)

I can think of some possibly relevant differences, but I’m wondering what you’re thinking.

Degradation doesn’t have to involve a power differential of the sort you seem to suggest. (Though maybe I misunderstand.)

You do misunderstand, because I said a power or status differential, I wasn’t suggesting any particular sort, and I have no disagreement with any of the following:

You can be degraded by your peers or inferiors, e.g., in a “fall from grace” due to a scandal.

The only necessary “power differential” is in your own status over time, before and after. It is not necessary that the degradee have lower status than the degrader, and the reverse is not rare.

There doesn’t even have to be any particular degrader, e.g., if you slip up and reveal yourself to have done something embarrassing, through no particular effort of anyone else, that can be quite humiliating and thus “degrading.”

2) an individual’s enjoyment something does not mean it is above critique. Many women have enjoyed the traditional role of housewife and homemaker — such enjoyment doesn’t mean it’s empowering, nor that as a society we should be satisfied at any given time that that time’s particular percentage of women have no employment outside the home.

(And I wish I had a good word for “hysteria” w/o the possible sexist connotations, but I don’t. Saying “mass hysteria” seems better, when it fits—I don’t think many people picture a mass of hysterical women.)

I actually had to scroll back up and read it all again to find the things you apparently consider personal attacks. The worst I can find is “You seem to have pulled this claim out of your ass”. Unnecessary, sure, but do you really consider this a personal attack?

I believe that chigau is sincerely worried for my sake that someone will overreact to me and there will be a shitstorm. And I appreciate this concern, which might not be too sensitively tuned considering these interesting times.

Yes, that most certainly is what everyone is saying here. I, as a victim of exploitation for child porn, am definitely of the opinion that child porn harms no one. That is totally my opinion.

I want to sincerely apologize for what I wrote last night. No, that is not what you or anyone here was saying. I was working into a panic attack, which isn’t an excuse for saying vicious things towards the people into this thread, but I was completely irrational and going into fight-or-flight mode. I’m sorry.

Azkyroth:

There really needs to be a short, pithy term for people who are willing to completely trample actual victims in the name of their pet moral crusades, while pretending to be advocating for them. Any thoughts? :/

Has it occurred to you that some victims of child sexual abuse might not have these conversations in a completely detached and logical mode? That maybe, just maybe, someone could be upset about something for some other reason than it being a “pet moral crusade”?

I’m staying out of this thread because I can already feel the adrenaline response starting again, but I did want to say I was sorry for my wild accusations.

Way to evade the issues. I made an analogy and asked what you thought of it.

You did? Where? I see you addressing me at #209 and nowhere else.

(Does the analogy go through? If not, what are the crucial points of disanalogy?)

I don’t know, because I don’t know what the video game question has to do with anything I’ve said. Maybe you could be clearer about that.

We think the analogy is relevant to what you and others have been saying in this thread,

I would like it noted that I am saying the things which I am saying, and not the things which others are saying. Whether I agree with the things others are saying is beyond the scope of my interest in any discussion with you. I have time to defend what I said.

which is largely about porn and what exactly makes it okay or not okay.

Ahem. I have been responding regarding the findings of the Jansma study. It did not use these terms, “okay” or “not okay”. Would you like to tailor your question toward something I’ve said?

Caerie, thank you. For my part, I realized after your post, and after I thought about it a while, that I may have been overly clinical and detached and thus inconsiderate while talking on a topic that folks here have deeply personal reactions to.

“Swallow shit, or ruin the whole day?”

There are the occasions that men—intellectual men, clever men, engaged men—insist on playing devil’s advocate, desirous of a debate on some aspect of feminist theory or reproductive rights or some other subject generally filed under the heading: Women’s Issues. These intellectual, clever, engaged men want to endlessly probe my argument for weaknesses, want to wrestle over details, want to argue just for fun—and they wonder, these intellectual, clever, engaged men, why my voice keeps raising and why my face is flushed and why, after an hour of fighting my corner, hot tears burn the corners of my eyes. Why do you have to take this stuff so personally? ask the intellectual, clever, and engaged men, who have never considered that the content of the abstract exercise that’s so much fun for them is the stuff of my life.

I may have miscommunicated about something that helped trigger your snark.

When I picked up on Azkyroth’s question about words for “hysteria” sans sexist connotations, I was NOT meaning to say that fear of psychological and social consequences of porn viewing was “hysterical,” and certainly not to call you hysterical.

It’s just a word that I’ve tried to find a nonsexist substitute for myself, and I picked up on that.

I may have miscommunicated about something that helped trigger your snark.

Ah. No, not that. My snark is entirely about this implication that I should be answering an analogy which has not been addressed to me and is not relevant in any evident way to what I’ve been saying regarding the Jansma study.

Has it occurred to you that some victims of child sexual abuse might not have these conversations in a completely detached and logical mode?

So because I was abused, and that abuse included the creation of child pornography, I cannot approach the subject using logic? Am I misreading this, or was I just, effectively, told that I’m too close to the subject and thus cannot contribute anything to the conversation?

. . . which is largely about porn and what exactly makes it okay or not okay.</blockquote

Consent on the part of those on both ends of the camera. And a child cannot give consent. I said yes to the scoutmaster because I thought I had no choice not because I had the mental, social, and educational capacity to say yes.

To imply that child pornography (not drawings or cg) can be produced without harm to children hurts. But, then again, I'm too close to the issue and am thus not in logical mode.

Has it occurred to you that someI, a victims of child sexual abuse, might not have these conversations in a completely detached and logical mode? That maybe, just maybe, someoneI could be upset about something for some other reason than it being a “pet moral crusade”?

I was talking about myself and my meltdown. I used distancing language. “Some” does not mean “all” or “most.” In this instance, it just meant me.

So because I was abused, and that abuse included the creation of child pornography, I cannot approach the subject using logic? Am I misreading this, or was I just, effectively, told that I’m too close to the subject and thus cannot contribute anything to the conversation?

That’s not how I read Caerie at all. It might help to reference the post she was responding to, that was implying that everyone was willing to “completely trample actual victims in the name of their pet moral crusades, while pretending to be advocating for them.” Bringing up victims of abuse was a way of pointing out that no, that was a stupid thing to say. I think the “not detached/logical” point was pointing out that this is serious business, and not simply white knights on some abstract “pet moral crusade” as Azkyroth seemed to be characterizing opposition.

I’m not telling you how to take it, but Caerie did say she wasn’t coming back to this thread, and my reading of her post greatly differed from yours (understandably). But if you still feel targeted and feel up to it, you might want to review what she’s quoting. I think it supports my interpretation.

You’re probably right that I haven’t been keeping good enough track of who’s saying what.

Still, when you snarkily invited me to discuss what I’m saying elsewhere, as though it was off-topic in this thread, when it was not, you invited yourself into that discussion.

You seemed to claim it was off-topic, and dismiss it as a mere pretense. I claim it’s neither, whether it’s what you, personally want to talk about here or not—you are not the boss of this thread, and it’s plenty relevant to what others have said.

If you want to stay out of the discussion of the video game analogy, as you seem to be saying, then you can certainly and by all means stay out of that discussion. I heartily encourage you to do so.

FWIW, that was how I interpreted it. It didn’t seem like a claim that any particular victims other than yourself were having such difficulties, much less that all were. Just that it sometimes happens to some victims, and it had happened to you in the case under discussion.

It made perfect sense to me and seemed like quite a sensible, civil, and responsible post. Good on ya.

For what it’s worth, I tried to keep anything that might be a trigger in a state that’s not readily readable unless the person intentionally wanted to. This is a touchy subject for way too many, and I know that this will personally probably be the last contribution to this thread I will make, unless somebody responds to something of mine.

I apologize if any of my comments were involved in triggering your panic attack.

I’m always worried about the ‘images’ thing. You never know what images will offend someone. I’ve been called a pedophile for having drawings of myself as an adult. That made no sense, but the fear is there.

So far, the Supreme Court last ruling (but it’s decades out of date now) was that drawings couldn’t be porn, since they were drawings; and that writing couldn’t be, because it couldn’t be prurient or harm children. But that constantly seems to be eroded.

On DeviantArt, an art website, art that is deemed too adult in nature – like bare breasts – of characters who were once depicted as under age is removed. That’s not even pedophilia! It’s adults! Most of them don’t even look like children anymore. The line is so blurry as to be actually troublesome.

So that’s what people with paraphilias think when they’ve been told someone has been caught with images. Or have you imagined what might be lurking in your browser cache? Or in the hundreds of thousands of PCs compromised with viruses and trojans sitting on in someone’s house?

So that’s what people with paraphilias think when they’ve been told someone has been caught with images.

In general, this is understandable. However, it makes no sense in this thread. If you can read the initial post (or any other on this current topic) and only come away with “someone has been caught with images”, you aren’t really reading what is there.

How would you know one way or another if I care, based solely on my pointing out that for all intents and purposes, you and everyone beating the “just images” drum are engaging in non sequiturs in this thread? If your response is that the thread has moved on from talking about the original “conspiracy to kidnap” charges among others (yeah, that sounds like someone who was just collecting images), then ok, say that, but that still does not have any bearing on whether or not I care.

Because that person may just as reasonably throw anyone who has a picture of a baby, a cartoon of two stick figures, etc, just because of someone else’s interpretation.

Enjoying the strawman? Point out to me one person in this thread who has said that people should be thrown in prison based on poorly defined charges of “owning explicit images”. Of note, comments here have tended to focus on actual images of actual children, and even then the words “jail” or “prison” aren’t really there (two hits on prison, and neither is saying “throw people in prison for having objectionable images”). Yes, such statements are found elsewhere. Argue with them there. Here, people have simply been talking about the harm caused by such (are you denying that children are harmed when they are manipulated or forced to be photographed to arouse adults?), and your objections are beyond ridiculous.

I can empathise with him though. My fetish at least does involve people of a consenting age-but in a most “involuntary” way. I’ve been fortunate to have consenting partners so I get to act on my fantasies and vent the pressure…

Quoting me:To me the problem is this: Isn’t the xian “holy spirit” supposed to be able to “heal” or “excorcise” this person?

Are you seriously asking this on a predominantly atheist message board?

Yes I am. So what?

Me:
Just more evidence that it doesn’t exist.

Do you seriously believe any less in the Holy Spirit now than you did before you read the article?

Nope. Just pointing out to any fence-sitters that there is one more data point that it doesn’t exist.

Yes, this is an example to Christians about where their “Holy Spirit” seems to have missed someone (although I don’t suggest you try it; when they inevitably say it happened for a reason and he (found|will find) redemption in prison, you might not be able to resist the urge to deck them). What does this have to do with a comment thread on an atheist message board asking “what is it with these Christianists?” We’re supposed to be the ones dealing with evidence, and the evidence is that Christianity doesn’t cause this sort of thing.

The evidence is that christianity does not STOP this sort of thing any more than any other ideology. Psychos like this are found everywhere.

It may shelter it at times,…

Which makes it worse…

…and that is definitely something that needs to be spoken out against if that is the case (facts of this matter are still pending, on that front).

Easy enough, no jokes here, the only treatment that can garentee that this person will never harm another child is the one he is least likely to receive. A swift execution.

Except that, in the United States, justice and punishment are a fucking joke. The likelihood of execution depends almost completely on the quality of the lawyer. Which means that the death penalty is extremely dependent upon wealth which, to me, makes justice and punishment a joke.

There is someone that I would like to see die. I would like to see him die slowly and painfully. He took away something that can never be replaced, something that I can never, ever get back. I want revenge.

Which is why we have moved justice to the government. Which is exactly the reason that an effective and fair justice system is essential. I am the last person you would want on a jury during the trial of someone like Mr. Brown. I cannot be fair, cannot be impartial. Wanting someone to die is not justice. It is revenge.

I want to sincerely apologize for what I wrote last night. No, that is not what you or anyone here was saying. I was working into a panic attack, which isn’t an excuse for saying vicious things towards the people into this thread, but I was completely irrational and going into fight-or-flight mode. I’m sorry.

Apology accepted, and I extend my greatest sympathy to you. Being emotionally invested in an issue can do a number on us, and I can’t fault you for that.

Has it occurred to you that some victims of child sexual abuse might not have these conversations in a completely detached and logical mode? That maybe, just maybe, someone could be upset about something for some other reason than it being a “pet moral crusade”?

No, it really hasn’t, partly because I literally can’t think of ANY occasion where I’ve been cut any slack for my OWN difficulties having certain conversations in a completely detached and logical mode because of my own traumatic experiences, and partly because the last time I tried to explicitly “cut someone slack for NOT having a conversation in a completely detached and logical mode because of past traumas” around here I was verbally eviscerated for it.

Other than that, I want to be as gracious as Grimalkin but I’m not going to lie: I kind of just feel numb right now.

Azkyroth, I’m going to tell you again what I told you before in another thread: you need to stop making blanket accusations of people being “hypocritical” or just airing a “pet moral crusade” or co-opting someone else’s victimhood when people who have been directly harmed by the issue under discussion speaks up against said issue under discussion.

Seriously.

Hairhead, thank you for your comment. I agree with what you said, which is why I am willing to put myself and my experiences out there. I especially agree with this part:

If we, as a society, decide that even computer-generated child porn which can reduce abuse simply cannot be condoned, then we MUST find others ways to actively reduce child sexual abuse. Put it on the front burner.

I don’t have the answers either, which is why I am asking the questions.

PaulW

Isn’t that what they say about gay marriage?

And Darwinism. And atheism. And marijuana.

And alcohol, socialism, rock and roll, and women with bare arms or legs.

The thing with all of the above you mentioned is that it has been demonstrated that they do not do harm to society. This has not been demonstrated with drawn/artistic/whatever you wanna call it child porn and I’m not seeing that part of my argument addressed *anywhere*.

Drawn child porn is NOT victimless just because no children were physically harmed during the manufacturing of it just as rape jokes are not victimless even though the joker never actually raped anyone. I am a victim of the mindset supported by this kind of fantasy, the idea that just sometimes, with some children I mean “people”, it’s OK and they really wanted it and it’s not really that bad.

I want to reiterate: I do not believe, nor do I claim, that drawn child porn is AS harmful as real child porn nor do I believe or argue that the penalties for the two should be the same.

I also don’t believe possession of drawn child porn should be a criminal offense. Just to get that clear.

I’m not comparing drawn child porn to real child porn, I’m comparing drawn child porn to NO child porn at all, the absence of any form of child porn, and my conclusion is that in that comparison, the drawn child porn does more harm than good, because of the cultural normalization of children “having sex” with adults. Children can not “have sex” with adults!
And drawn child porn reinforces the idea that somehow, for some kids in some situation, that rule just doesn’t apply.

You’re drawing a crucial distinction between one kind of make-believe child on the one hand, and on the other a different kind of make-believe child or real child? That’s a pretty odd place to draw the line…

I don’t see why it’s odd. It seems quite obvious to me.

When an adult role-plays a child, everyone involved knows that hey, this is not really a child, this is still an adult and everyone still consented. The same with rape-play. Everyone consented! It’s not actual rape, it’s rape-play! That’s the difference. Sure, in the context of the game everyone involved *makes believe* that the consent never happened, but that’s what it is: make believe. The consent happened, and everyone knows it and there’s some sort of safe word to enforce it.

When the drawings/whatever of actual children are used, even if the existence of the “child” in question is make believe, there is not even a possibility of consent. That is the part I have issue with, not the actual ages or existence of the parties involved. It’s all about the issue of consent.

One can make believe that consent hadn’t been given with an adult, but you can’t make believe anything to do with consent with a child (or a drawing of a child) because by definition, a child doesn’t have consent to give or withold.

The comparison to video games. I love video games too. In my previous post, I referred to the cultural harm that’s reinforced by things like rape jokes and drawn child porn because it feeds into the rape culture we are saturated in.

Do we live in a similar culture of violence, where victims of murders and shootings are often doubted, put on trial, and basically treated the way rape (even child rape) victims are?

Because if we don’t, the comparison doesn’t make sense, nor would any comparison like gays, socialism and whatnot.

To conclude and reword, my main argument is: Why are rape jokes not okay (which I’mma assume most of us here are on board with, for reasons well defined and articulated because it’s contributing harm on a cultural level by feeding into rape culture) but (drawn) child porn is not seen the same way when it has the same effect of contributing to harm on a cultural level by feeding into rape culture?

When the drawings/whatever of actual children are used, even if the existence of the “child” in question is make believe, there is not even a possibility of consent. That is the part I have issue with, not the actual ages or existence of the parties involved. It’s all about the issue of consent.

(BTW, this seems to me like a mostly separate issue from your concerns about whether “victimless” child porn has indirect bad effects by promoting a rape mentality and rape culture. I’m not dealing with the latter here.)

Suppose I pick up an actual person and throw them across the room without their permission.

There’s a problem there of lack of consent.

But suppose I pick up a cardboard cutout of a person and throw it across the room.

There’s the same lack of consent there, but it doesn’t matter in the same way, or at all, because consent doesn’t enter into it.

The problem with “lack of consent” in real rape (or person-throwing) isn’t intrinsic to there being no consent. It’s only a problem if there is a person there whose interests are not being safeguarded—e.g., some somebody having something done to them against their will.

Imaginary people do not have such interests, or will, or any need for safeguarding. They are literally nonpersons with no rights. If anybody has any rights about how they’re treated, it would be their owners, e.g., their creators or whoever they’re licensed to. They’re not slaves; they’re intellectual property at most.

I don’t ask a golf ball for permission to hit it with a club. That doesn’t mean I’m committing battery or even (imagined) “battery” against it when I do.

The difference between persons and inanimate things is crucial when it comes to issues or non-issues of consent.

When somebody voluntarily roleplays a rape victim, they give the person playing the rapist permission to treat their intellectual property in a certain way.

In both cases, the person(s) who create the virtual rapee give permission for it to be used as a virtual rapee, and that’s all there is to the consent issue.

The virtual rapee rightly has no say in the matter, because it’s not a person or any kind of being with rights or interests. It literally does not and cannot care.

Given all that, I’d say the issue of (no) consent is a complete red herring.

It also seems like your other main argument is very, very different.

You seem to regard child porn as something like an addictive drug, and virtual child porn as a gateway drug, which has harmful side effects itself, as well as being a gateway to the harder stuff with worse (and more obvious) effects.

Does that seem about right? It seems like maybe a fruitful analogy to me.

On the consent issue, we’ll have to agree to disagree, because I disagree with just about everything you said but I really don’t have the emotional energy right now to try to convince you or anyone else or argue it further.

You seem to regard child porn as something like an addictive drug, and virtual child porn as a gateway drug, which has harmful side effects itself, as well as being a gateway to the harder stuff with worse (and more obvious) effects.

To a degree, that’s actually what I’m saying with the consent issue that you labeled a “red herring”.

My other main argument is this: I’m saying that like rape jokes, virtual child porn feeds into toxic memes of rape culture, reinforcing said memes and embedding it ever deeper into our culture. This is demonstrably bad.

Like rape jokes, I don’t think virtual child porn should be a crime, but I do not think that it is or should be considered “perfectly fine and victimless”. I think that there should be social consequences to possession of virtual child porn similar to what I support for the makers of rape jokes.

(And I ask you to consider whether the concept is analogous to “gateway drugs” before you respond, because I will ask you to argue the case if you consider that’s the case (weak drugs are still drugs, depictions of people ain’t people)

And I ask you to consider whether the concept is analogous to “gateway drugs” before you respond, because I will ask you to argue the case if you consider that’s the case (weak drugs are still drugs, depictions of people ain’t people, as you’ve noted))